


Ayakashi in the Classroom

by scifisentai



Category: Samurai Sentai Shinkenger
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:51:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9956381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifisentai/pseuds/scifisentai
Summary: Chiaki and Ryuunosuke encounter their first Ayakashi sooner than expected.





	

It was not, Ryuunosuke would later think, the kind of day you expected two worlds to collide. It started out as a regular day and he’d come into school with his classes as well prepared as always, not imagining for a moment that this would be the day that showed him just what his samurai training had been for. The morning passed without incident - the students were finally beginning to get used to him and the pranks he suspected originated with Tani-kun had subsided - and while lunch was a somewhat hurried affair due to a misunderstanding between Samezu-sensei and Washio-sensei that was _entirely_ his fault, the afternoon wasn’t shaping up too badly, either.

The pop quiz had gone down about as well as he’d expected it to - no-one liked them, after all - but Ryuunosuke was pleased with how his authority was slowly being accepted here that his class had settled down to it with a minimum of grumbling. Ryuunosuke paced back and forth in front of the blackboards, keeping a surreptitious eye on the time: only half an hour to go and then they could turn in their papers. A couple of the more enterprising students had finished already but the majority were still working when there came the sound of a roar bursting into the classroom from the back wall. Ryuunosuke froze as… things, monstrous things, appeared out of nowhere armed with teeth, clawed hands and swords. Behind them emerged something even more terrible and it blocked the door, preventing the students from escaping.

Ayakashi, his mind screeched. It had to be an Ayakashi, which meant the other things were the Nanashi, the foot soldiers of the Gedoushu. He didn’t have anything to hand that he could use as a weapon and he refused to put his students in danger without a means of getting them away. If only he had the ShinkenMaru his father had talked of so often during his training… But it was useless thinking like that: he wouldn’t have such a sword unless he was called by the lord of the Shiba clan; he would just have to do this without it.

The Ayakashi moved, pushing through the knot of students, looking around the room and almost… sniffing. It stopped at the left hand side of the room where a handful of students were pressed against the wall: Kato-kun, Sakurai-san and Tani-kun. Kato-kun and Sakurai-san whimpered and tried moving away but the Ayakashi wasn’t interested in them. It laughed, ignoring them as they edged away, focused instead on Tani-kun before its arm shot out, fastening its hand around Tani-kun’s throat. Ryuunosuke’s focus narrowed to the immediate threat: his lack of reaction may have seemed logical but it hadn’t helped Tani-kun and he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.

Most of his students had already bolted out the door, possibly being herded somewhere by the Nanashi, but the students knew the school and he just had to hope they could get away while he dealt with the Ayakashi before it could accomplish whatever it was here to do. 

“Well,” the Ayakashi purred, not budging as Tani-kun’s legs lashed out in a strong kick at its chest. “This was easier than I was expecting, Shinkenger. Do you think the others will be as easy to deal with?”

_Shinkenger?_ It couldn’t be, Ryuunosuke’s mind insisted. Tani-kun’s eyes blazed with fury but he couldn’t possibly be a Shinkenger, there was just no way…. Ryuunosuke’s gaze fell on Tani-kun’s bag, shoved against the wall and that was when recognition kicked in. Tani-kun had a collection of keyrings hung on the zip of his bag and Ryuunosuke couldn’t fathom how he’d missed the heavy-looking green disc hidden beneath the rest, a match for his own origami, currently in his blazer pocket, hung over the back of his chair. Unlikely as it might seem, Tani-kun could only be a samurai like himself.

“How should I know?” Tani-kun spat. “Besides, I’m not done yet, smart ass.”

He kicked out again and Ryuunosuke would have smiled at that under other circumstances: Tani-kun had a tendency to talk big which sometimes got him in trouble. Unfortunately it rarely had the opposite effect, which was to get him out of trouble and, like Ryuunosuke, Tani-kun had nothing at hand to use as a weapon. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Now that the room was empty and he didn’t have to worry about innocents getting caught in the middle of a battle, Ryuunosuke had a little more freedom and he intended to use it. Neither Tani-kun or the Ayakashi appeared to realise he was still there and that would give him the element of surprise.

Slowly edging his way forward, Ryuunosuke grabbed hold of a chair and, judging the distance between himself and the Ayakashi, brought it down hard across the Ayakashi’s back. The monster roared with pain and spun to face him, dropping Tani-kun to the floor, much to Ryuunosuke’s relief.

“Sensei, run!” Tani-kun gasped, rubbing at his throat as he climbed unsteadily to his feet. “You can’t--”

Ryuunosuke ignored him. “Your opponent is me,” he told the Ayaskashi, backing up and pushing chairs and tables aside to make room before lashing out with a roundhouse kick to its side. It didn’t have much of an effect, not that Ryuunosuke had really expected it to. His hand-to-hand skills were highly polished but his lack of a weapon left him severely disadvantaged in this situation.

“And why would I care about you?” the Ayakashi retorted, nonetheless not taking its eyes off him. “He’s the one I came for.”

“Then you’ll have to go through me first,” Ryuunosuke replied firmly. “That’s the only way you’ll get to my student.”

“Sensei, don’t be an idiot!” Tani-kun shouted. He had been somewhere behind the Ayakashi but he reappeared now with his arms around the Ayakashi’s waist in an ungainly tackle. “Run!”

“I’m not going anywhere, Tani-kun,” Ryuunosuke said steadily, mentally giving the boy points for trying to evacuate someone he saw as a civilian.

“But--!”

The protest was cut off as the Ayakashi shook itself free, faint lines beginning to appear on its arms with a cracking sound. “Out of water,” the Ayakashi cursed. “But I’ll finish this before I go.”

Ryuunosuke blinked in confusion. What was it talking about? He got his answer in a burst of energy blowing him backwards into the far wall, crashing into his desk. The last thing he saw before he passed out was Tani-kun being thrown in the opposite direction.

***

“Hey, Ikenami-san, you okay?”

Ryuunosuke groaned in reply as he slowly forced his eyes open. His head was pounding and his back felt as if someone had taken a hammer to it and he really didn’t want to wake up if it was only to make everything hurt _worse,_ but it didn’t seem as if that was an option.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” said the familiar voice and Ryuunosuke finally managed to put a name to it: Samezu-san. What was Samezu-san doing in his classroom? The last thing he remembered was the Ayakashi and…

“Tani-kun!” he cried, sitting bolt upright and then wishing he hadn’t as his headache grew ten times worse.

“He’s fine,” Samezu-san said reassuringly. “He got the bed because he’s the student, so you got stuck with the spare futon Tatsumi-san keeps in here.”

Looking around the room Ryuunosuke belatedly realised he was in the Nurse’s Office and not his classroom, Samezu Kai crouched at his side, tossing something idly between his hands. “How did I get here?” he wondered in confusion. He didn’t remember coming down here at _all._

“Soutarou carried you,” Samezu-san shrugged. “Did you know he almost went into pro-wrestling? He got injured before he could but he’s still really good. Picked you up like you were nothing.”

Ryuunosuke nodded slowly as if that made sense. Possibly when his head no longer hurt quite so badly it might, but right now it was a little too much to process. But where was… ah, there he was, on the bed just as he’d been told. “Is Tani-kun alright?”

“He’ll be fine,” Samezu-san replied with an easy smile. “He woke up briefly before he went back to sleep. His dad’s on his way to pick him up.”

_Wonderful,_ Ryuunosuke thought glumly. Not only had he failed to protect his student, he now had to face the parent of said student, who was probably a former retainer and Shinkenger, someone who’d fought for the previous Shiba lord. He had no idea what he could possibly say to the man to atone for his failure.

“Hey, don’t look so down, Ikenami,” Samezu-san said, thumping him lightly in the shoulder. “You look like someone just pronounced your death sentence. The guy’s not going to be mad at you for protecting his son, you know.”

“I know,” Ryuunosuke protested. Because he did, kind of, but Samezu-san didn’t know the whole story and there was no way he could explain.

“Good. Don’t worry about it, Ikenami, everything will be fine. Here.” Samezu-san tossed the thing he’d been playing with in Ryuunosuke’s direction and he caught it reflexively, his fingers automatically recognising the feel of his origami. “You were clutching this pretty tight when we found you,” Samezu-san said casually. “I thought it must be important.”

So important he’d been _playing_ with it, Ryuunosuke thought, scandalised by such undignified treatment of something so important, but he kept his expression neutral as he ran his fingers over it, making sure it hadn’t been damaged. “A gift from my father,” he said eventually. That wasn’t exactly a lie, his father _had_ been the one to give it to him, after all, when he’d first begun his samurai training.

Samezu-san nodded and, after glancing at his watch, got to his feet. “I have to go,” he said. “I’m glad you’re okay, Ikenami-san. Just don’t go throwing yourself at monsters next time, alright? You might not get so lucky again.”

He wouldn’t be caught off guard again, Ryuunosuke thought grimly. The Gedoshu knew about Tani-kun, at least, and maybe himself: they’d be back. “Don’t worry, Samezu-san,” he replied, forcing himself to smile. “I learned my lesson.”

“Good. See you later, Ikenami. Get some rest tonight, okay?”

“I will.”

He waited until Samezu-san had left the room before he relaxed fully. Finally, a moment’s breathing space. 

“Has he gone?” Tani-kun murmured, sitting up in the bed, looking half-asleep still as he scratched at his scalp. “I thought he’d never leave.”

“How long have you been awake?” Ryuunosuke demanded. “I should get Tatsumi-san, she can make sure you’re alright.”

“I’m fine, Sensei,” the boy grumbled. “It’s just a headache, that’s all.” Sleepy eyes sharpened as Tani-kun studied him. “Why didn’t you run?” he wanted to know. “There was no way you could beat that thing, you have to know that.”

Ryuunosuke silently held up his origami. “The same reason you didn’t, Tani-kun.”

The boy’s eyes widened as his gaze flickered between Ryuunosuke and the origami he held in his hand. “You’re a samurai?” he asked incredulously. “Seriously?”

Ryuunosuke bristled at the tone. Surely he had not performed so poorly against the Ayakashi that Tani-kun could doubt him. “My father was Shinken Blue,” he retorted. “As I will be if our lord ever calls us.”

“You really buy into all the lord and retainers crap?” Tani-kun asked scornfully. “This isn’t a period drama, Sensei, it’s real life.”

Ryuunosuke stared at Tani-kun in horror. How was it possible that he was so indifferent? So dismissive of their duties and responsibilities to their lord? What had the boy been _taught?_ He was saved from replying to such shocking disrespect as the door opened, admitting the man who had to be Tani-kun’s father. The man’s appearance explained everything, Ryuunosuke supposed: a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts weren’t exactly befitting a samurai retainer.

“Chiaki!” the man exclaimed, hurrying over to the bed. “Are you alright? Do you need a hospital? No, of course you don’t. If you did the school would have called one. Are you--”

_“Dad!”_ Tani-kun interrupted, holding up his hands to stop the flow of words. “I’m fine. It’s just a headache.”

Tani-san paused, giving his son a thorough look over before he nodded. “Alright, then, Chiaki, if you’re sure. Want to go home?”

“So ready to,” Tani-kun groaned, swinging his legs out from under the sheet. “I’ve been going crazy from boredom in here. The nurse wouldn’t even let me play my DS.”

Tani-san laughed, then finally seemed to realise Ryuunosuke was there if the double-take reaction was anything to go by. “Ah…”

Ryuunosuke bowed from his seated position on the floor. “Ikenami Ryuunosuke,” he said. “I’m Tani-kun’s teacher.”

“Ikenami,” Tani-san said softly, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully as he stared down at him. A moment later the shrewd expression was gone, replaced by a beaming smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ikenami-san. I’m sorry you’ve been stuck dealing with a student like this one.”

“Hey!”

“I know he can be a bit hard to teach sometimes,” Tani-san continued. “But--” Whatever he’d been going to say was cut off as Tani-kun slapped a hand over his father’s mouth.

“We’re going now, Sensei,” he said brightly, grabbing his bag with his free hand. “See you tomorrow. Come _on,_ dad, let’s get out of here.”

Ryuunosuke watched in bemusement as Tani-kun manhandled his father out of the Nurse’s Office. He could never in a million years treat his father in such a cavalier fashion. He wondered what Tani-san had been like as a retainer and what Tani-kun would be like if - or when, as seemed to be more likely - they were called to serve.

Still, now that Tani-kun was safely in the hands of his father there was no reason for him to stay here any longer and he rose slowly to his feet, satisfied that his sense of balance hadn’t been affected by the blow to his head. It was time to go home for him as well, and now that he knew the Ayakashi were actively out in the world again he’d step up his training. He wasn’t going to be caught off guard again and he was determined that their lord would not find him lacking when he finally summoned them.


End file.
